Undead of the Black Sun work slightly differently from traditional undead. The lesser ones at least (skeletons, zombies) are typically created in mass, via high-level magic, tainted with the power of the Outer Gods. As a result, they generally act and fight as companies of 10-12 creatures, using swarm mechanics as follows
- Each member of the company shares a group mind. While still no smarter than typical zombies or skeletons, they share perception (what one member of the Company knows, they all know) and fight, move, and act completely in concert.
- The controller shares a telepathic link with its commander (usually the magic user who cast the spell that raised them) and can only act as the commander orders. The commander must be within 60 feet of at least one member of the swarm to use this telepathic link. If the commander is not within 60 feet, the swarm will continue to carry out its most recent orders
- Iif the controller is destroyed any other priest can assume control of the group with a one round ritual
- To maintain this link, however, they must remain within 30 feet of each other at all times. If one of the undead is separated from the hive mind, it lapses into inactivity
- They do not attack individually; they attack as units. Divide the number of undead by 3 (round normally), that is the number of attacks they roll. Each attack does damage dice equivalent to if all the individual creatures had hit or missed.
- They all save together, rolling once
- They share a single hit point pool, which is the sum of all their individual hit points. If one individual is destroyed, it quickly reforms. However, the damage done to an individual is subtracted from the hit point pool
- If the swarm is hit by an AoE attack, each figure is damaged normally, and the sum of that damage is subtracted from the whole. AoE attacks can be quite deadly
- If the hit point pool of the swarm falls below half its total, the swarm becomes degraded, and half the individuals collapse into sand